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CNN Sunday Morning

Did bin Laden Escape War on Terrorism?

Aired June 23, 2002 - 10:03   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: More now on this unconfirmed report that Osama bin Laden and the majority of his al Qaeda leaders have escaped the war on terrorism. Our Nic Robertson is at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. He joins us now. Nic, the White House isn't putting much credence into this. What's the thinking over there?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the thinking over here is that operations inside Afghanistan continue as they have been for the last six or seven months here in the search for al Qaeda and Taliban on the ground.

Just this weekend, British Royal Marine commanders, along with U.S. Special Forces, believe they've had one of the more significant hauls of weapons and men for the past few weeks and months. Just east of here, close to the border with Pakistan, they say they have captured about a truckload of ammunition. They say they were going through a small village. A large antenna on the roof of a compound in that village attracted their attention. They tried to go toward that building. Somebody at the door closed the door on them. They broke down the wall. When they got inside the house, they said that they found five or six rooms full of weapons, some of those weapons quite heavy caliber -- anti-aircraft machine guns, 120 millimeter, very large mortars, missiles, rocket missiles as well.

And they say this was a significant find in terms of the size of weapons, the amount of weapons, in a village of that size. Some of those weapons were new. They say they've taken into custody 10 men, perhaps a few more than 10 men, they say. And at this time, they're not saying whether they were al Qaeda or Taliban, but they say for this village, very significant.

And that's the view from here, Miles, is that the operations here continue, that they're doing their job, the coalition forces, to root out any Taliban and al Qaeda forces here and deny them the ground, deny them their munitions and deny them their supporters here.

O'BRIEN: CNN's Nic Robertson. Thank you very much.

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